More specifically, flexible tubes or pipes, and recipients or containers, are used in the biopharmaceutical field to transport and contain various biopharmaceutical substances, usually with the necessary aseptic precautions. In the field of biopharmaceutical applications, fluids are transported and stored at low pressure, usually below 10 bar and most often below 2 bar, preferably at a pressure close to atmospheric pressure.
When using certain biopharmaceutical substances, it may be necessary to temporarily guarantee sufficiently sterile conditions after various components (pipes and/or containers) have been connected, while maintaining the possibility of uncoupling the connection when necessary.
In other cases of using biopharmaceutical substances, it may be necessary to guarantee conditions of complete sterility after various components (pipes and/or containers) have been connected. To this end, it is convenient to use male-female locking connections that cannot be detached after coupling, which ensures that no undesired uncoupling will break the sterile conditions.
This kind of connection needs to be obtained by a simple and quick coupling. In practice, solutions are preferred where the coupling is achieved by an axial translational movement without rotation to insert the male connector into the female connector.
To cover all possible cases, usually permanently attached connections are used as well as lockable connections with the possibility of unlocking.
Virtually tamperproof connections are known, for example from patents EP-A-0566889 and U.S. Pat. No. 5,573,279. Also known from patent WO2010/011883 are lockable connections with the possibility of unlocking.
However, the female connectors of these types of connection are quite different from each other, especially in their shape.
There is therefore a need to provide modular solutions which at least partially overcome the aforementioned disadvantage of the known prior art.